Craftsmanship Yard News
SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION
Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk
LEVINGTON, SUFFOLK
Keel and wheels Here is Andrew Gilmour’s 1959, Tucker Brown-built Stella Timoa about to be towed away from Suffolk Yacht Harbour by his 1959 Austin A35. Hang on, I hear you say! That’s a 34hp car and a 2.7-tonne yacht. Not to worry – it’s a joke photo – no towing took place! Andrew bought his first A35 as a penniless student for £15, made it roadworthy, welded an angle iron to the back bumper, and used it to trail his OK dinghy to races. The boat, too, has a story. It belonged to Andrew’s father in the 1960s and he remembers racing it on the east coast before the family sold it in the mid-1970s. Andrew found it neglected in a boatyard in Looe 12 years ago, ANDREW GILMOUR
bought it back and restored it at Suffolk Yacht Harbour with his grown-up children and some boatbuilder help at the yard. The family have raced it ever since. This year they plan to step up the campaign, racing as always at the Suffolk Yacht Harbour Regatta in June, and adding the July British Classic Week in the Solent to their calendar.
MALDON, ESSEX
COWES, IOW
Sibbick flyer
70
Boatbuilder Jamie
repaint. The boats are three-masted
Clay has been busy
luggers and are rowed or sailed, each
refurbishing
boat taking 8-10 children. They are
Aethelfleda, one of
well used and have travelled as far as
three unusual large
Falmouth Week, Scotland’s Great Glen
dinghies owned by
Raid, The Great River Race in London,
King Alfred School
even France and Croatia.
in Golders Green in London. The boats were designed by Nigel Irens and built by the staff and pupils under a boatbuilder about two decades ago. The hulls are in yellow cedar stripplank, and the first was sheathed externally with epoxy and glass, the interior receiving
Cowes-based boatbuilder Martin Nott is
only sealing coats of epoxy resin. The
progressing well with Merry Maid, his 24
subsequent two hulls were also sheathed
foot linear rater. Designed and built by
internally before internal fitting out and
Charles Sibbick and launched in 1906, the
have fared well over the years. That first
very lightweight original hull planking
boat though, over a long period of time,
has now been covered with two layers of
has taken up moisture which has caused
thin mahogany veneer. Principal other
some distortion of the planking and glue
work has included new timbers,
failure in the plank joints. Jamie’s tricky-
fastenings, bronze floors, beamshelves,
sounding job has been to cut panels out of
deck beams and a plywood sub-deck.
all the buoyancy chambers to gain access,
Re-launch is planned optimistically for
then to strip all areas of the internal hull
later this year, or realistically early next
surface in order to apply epoxy glass
year.
sheathing, before a complete re-fairing and
CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2021
JAMIE CLAY
C/O MARTIN NOTT
Three-masted lug dinghy
